- Carving: Beware the White Witch
- Scarlet: “Beware the White Witch”…
- Scarlet: What does that mean? Who’s the White Witch?
- Tibor: Beats me. But that looks like the work of a bored teenager.
- Scarlet: Never ever! That must’ve been super important at one point!
- Tibor: Come again?
- Scarlet: Look, all the “W”s have exactly the same width and height. Someone must have milled that into the rock with a machine!
- Scarlet: Lavarel is full of this stuff!
- Tibor: What kind of stuff?
- Scarlet: Stuff! … Strange stuff that nobody understands. But people just don’t care!
- Tibor: I guess they’re too busy with their own survival.
- Scarlet: Then they’re doing a lousy job!
A Sky Full of Stars 062
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33 thoughts on “A Sky Full of Stars 062”
Agnarr
Three W’s.
Agnarr
Also, first!
Me
WWW? Beware the internet is a pretty good warning…
Midgard
Alas, it doesn’t work with the German version of this page!
And btw, https://www.webbyawards.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2015/02/0O4A8753-large-1.jpg
MelkiorWiseman
She’s not wrong. Tolkien commented on that through one of his characters stating something to the effect of “it may be that old wives keep in lore things which it was once needful for the wise to know.”
But Scarlet has forgotten that there are three “W”s, not two.
DavidK
I suppose this means Novil had already corrected “both” to “all” by the time I saw this comic.
doclbn
There was a teasing of fresh snow in the last panel of the previous page. Might the white witch symbolize winter (which truly is a thing to fear when lacking vital ressources), or is that analogy just too plain simple?!
DavidK
Where are the lion and the wardrobe?
Vicious Sand
😀 I’ve been saying that all along. Scarlet is entirely right. There’s too many pieces in the jigsaw box, and there’s more than one puzzle on the game board. If anything, this only helps raise the chances of the Machine of Eternal Summer being a thing, too. When the world is made out of enough crazy, sometimes you have to let the craziness be your supports.
Crystalgate
It helps in the sense that it’s plausible that the machine does exist, but nobody else has found it yet.
FuryoftheStars
A part of me wonders if we’re being trolled….
…
😆
Eddie S
Interesting… in the German language version of the comic, Scarlet compares the “E”s rather than the “W”s and the panel is slightly redrawn to show her comparing the correct letters. Is there a reason for this that I’m missing?
Clevershitter
You mean besides that the german phrasing has only one ‘W’?
Me
It’s just the language difference. She could make the same point about any of the letters: the relevant part is how neatly they’re carved, not which letters they are. In the German view, she could just as easily highlight how perfect both S’s are, though good choice by Novil not to use that particular example.
Crystalgate
The main reason is how the letters are aligned when going from one language to another. The E is in the German version located where the W is in the English version. The comic had to be redrawn a bit, but it’s more likely Novil choose what letters to compare depending on where they are position rather than choosing to draw so that the E in German and W in English are aligned.
Incidentally, Scarlet actually says “the two ‘E’s are” in the German version and it has been noticed that Scarlet used to says “both W” in the English version. While there are seven E in the German version, Scarlet is actually pointing towards two E located in the same word, while in the English version, the W are more spread out, although there is a second W just a bit above and to the right of the one she’s pointing at. Even so, referring to two E makes more sense in the German version than referring to two W in the English, which may be why it did so once.
Tadrix
In English, she could’ve compared E’s, as there are four of them (so more samples). W’s, T’s, H’s are only three of a kind. In German, there are seven H’s! Weird that she’s comparing just two.
Tadrix
Correction (typo), seven E’s.
Me
How do you get seven Es from “bEwarE thE whitE witch”?
Crystalgate
“Beware the witch” is English, not German. The German translation has 7 E’s.
Tadrix
Hütet euch vor der Weißen Hexe
Me
Yes, I now understand you were referring to the German version, but the earlier comment was ambiguous and made it sound like you were referring to the English. In other words, I thought the “correction” was to the number of E’s in English, rather than the letter in question in German.
aaaaaa123456789
Having done this many times, to tell if something was handwritten or printed: you only need two. Humans aren’t that precise at handwriting, and definitely not with characters that require either multiple strokes (like E) or multiple sharp turns (like W). Try writing anything without purposely trying to make all characters identical: you’ll see any pair of equal letters has noticeable differences.
FuryoftheStars
Stencils? *shrug*
Midgard
Yeah, but also: whatever ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Poyntre
I wonder if White Witch is a central character like Eldor in Gaia.
Novil
It would be strange to never mention or show the White Witch again after introducing her in such a dramatic fashion, wouldn’t it?
Poyntre
Well, not necessarily, if for instance another Witches would come (a dinasty, let us say). The long lasting villain (like Eldor) is very well attested in everywhere folklore, and it has many advantages as a literary device. It is never explained why they live that long, which in my childhood it made me a perfect insufferable. The best answer I received ever was “imagine he/she dies”.
aaaaaa123456789
You mean like Trias in Gaia? 🙂
FuryoftheStars
As this comment section lacks voting/liking a post, I just want to put a little “liked” here for you. 😛
❤️
HKMaly
I’m SURE this is not whole writing – there was something on next line which was lost.
Crystalgate
Tibor’s explanation doesn’t hold up. With the exception of recent months, people were not really struggling where they came from. Grondar most likely were, but Kirelia was not. The food production used to be low margin, but enough and there was plenty of excess work capability available. If they can have gambling facilities and build mansions, they have enough for archeology. I think we need to look at the psychology of the Lavael inhabitants here.
Anyway, this does improve Scarlet’s odds. If the inhabitants ae simple uninterested, she has a real chance of finding answers nobody else did. Even as a genius, she would be unlikely to find a solution to the lowering temperature if there are a load of scholars who spent generations trying to do the same.
Tadrix
That’s called “apathy”. Also, what we’ve seen at the museum could be interpreted as inquisitive humans having the strongest interest in history and leaving a legacy, unlike foxes and wolves (who might in turn be better at survival), given that mannequins, statues, and paintings we are shown primarily depict humans. Less of the population caring about such things = less of resources devoted to research.
Crystalgate
Apathy matches what the settings page says under religion. We can see that the people are trying to live good lives, but apparently they think Lavael is forsaken. So, their attitude is probably “Lavael is doomed, but I will probably be able to live my life before its doom is finalized”. They hope they can live good lives because they will probably die of old age before all life is lost to the cold, but they don’t think there is any preventing that eventual extinction of all life.
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